Kelly, who is already going through a difficult situation, trying to divorce her husband in the country, has found herself in a context of greater vulnerability since the beginning of the conflicts. Alone with her children, they are some of the thousands of displaced people in makeshift shelters in Beirut, and Kelly is one of the many foreign women who find in the war a way to escape domestic violence.
With this war situation, it got much worse. Because I always wanted to leave here because of the situation. Before, I felt alone. But now there are four children and me in this war.Kelly Rodrigues
Kelly lived near the border between Lebanon and Israel and says they have been dealing with attacks for the past year, since the conflict began. But in recent weeks, the bombings have increased, and her beauty salon was damaged by bombs. Despite the situation, Kelly's husband did not want to leave the area, but fearing for the safety of her children, she called for help, and her father-in-law took her to a safer place.
When the Israeli-Palestinian conflicts started, bombs fell behind our house. One day I was working in my salon, and then a bomb fell behind there. So I panicked. I went upstairs to my house.
Kelly describes how even on the way to the shelter there were bombings and that it took her a day and a half to make a two-hour journey from her home to Beirut.
“We left the other neighbourhood in the morning to go back to Beirut. It would take about two hours, but we spent the whole night with traffic at a standstill, and the bombs falling on the mountains, falling on cars. People were screaming, people were dying, people were running around in despair.”
Kelly's hope is to return to Brazil with her children on the government plane sent by Brazil to recover Brazilians. However, she noted that this first flight will only carry about 200 people, and there are more than 2,000 Brazilians on the ground.
Kelly has already reported her husband's abuse to the local police, but the police are unable to help Kelly.
She says if there is no deal, more people will die on both sides.
It’s worse. If no one stays quiet, they will take revenge. Here kill people there, and then they kill people here.
Kelly is not the only one who is fleeing twice in this situation. She knows other women who are trying to escape the war and see it as an opportunity to escape domestic violence.
Images of the region near where Kelly lived.
There are a lot of women. There are four or five who have already left their children and gone, they’re in Brazil, and they’re suffering away from their children.
The biggest challenge for Kelly and other women in her situation is that her husband refuses to issue passports for the children, and without the father’s permission, they cannot take their children with them, although they themselves could leave the country with their home country passports, but not with their children.
She is afraid for her children, as she has two boys, one almost 14 and the other 12, and two girls, 10 and 9, and her husband wanted to take the eldest son to war because he supports Hezbollah.
Region where Kelly used to live.
He’s going to want to take his children to war with Hezbollah. They take 14-year-old boys to war, and then if they die, Hezbollah pays their families 50,000 for their lives.
She compared their story to the fairy tale of Cinderella, but the "prince’s shoes" is the government evacuation flight to rescue them and their children.
It’s about us finding a prince charming and putting on the shoe and finding our life, right? Like the story of Cinderella. But in our story, the shoe is this plane and a law that gets these Brazilian women out of here who are being beaten. We can take it harder for our children. I’m not going to leave my children like this
**While this article was being finished, we have received confirmation that Kelly and her children were on their way to Beirut airport in Lebanon to board the Brazilian Air Force plane. And her planning was successful, with her children now on their way to Brazil for the first time.
To listen the complete interview, click 'play' on this page, or listen on the SBS Portuguese profile on your preferred podcast aggregator.
Followon , and listen . You can download SBS Audio on
